Week 1- Bit About Me & My Blog Overview for Week 1, "Learning Theories"

Week 1- What About Me and My Overview of Learning Theories

Firstly I will just let you all know a little about me, I have just completed a Bachelor of Exercise & Sports Science degree at CQU in 2014. With this year finding myself studying a GDLT Secondary full time, with my two teaching areas consisting of HPE and Business.

As you may have noticed with HPE being one of my teaching areas I have a really big passion for sports which include Hockey, Cricket, Rugby League, Golf and Soccer, in which I hope all my background knowledge will help with my HPE teaching side of things. I am also a die hard Parramatta Eels supporter and would like to share a photo below with my sporting hero (Nathan Hindmarsh)

Me with Nathan Hindmarsh @ Parramatta Stadium April 2011. 

I better continue with what I intended on finishing, so this weeks readings (Week 1 at Uni) focused on Learning Theories, I have had a brief understanding of all these concepts from 2009-2011 when I participated in the government initiative 'Get Active' in an afterschool care setting. From my experiences with this program, I noticed that a child's behaviour can change from one visit to another, morning to afternoon or even instantly. So it becomes important that you interact and understand each child's individual needs to learn, as well as maintaining your focus on the group as a whole.

In this week's readings there were 4 main "Learning Theories" listed which consisted of-

1. Behaviourism
2. Cognitivism
3. Constructivism
4. Connectivism

1. Behaviourism- learning is seen as being characterised by an observable change in behaviour. Students learn through practice positive reinforcement, and re-shaping what they have learned through the whole process. Students are led through a series of steps  in programmed instructions, with a pre-defined end result at each stage. Teachers reinforce behaviour targets as they occur, and reinforcement is gradually withdrawn as behaviour becomes internalised and automatic.  Many digital tools such as quizzes, online tutoring systems are all based on behaviourist design.

2. Cognitivism- Cognitivists generally explained the mental processes  in terms of a three stage model. Information is picked up by the senses and transferred to the sensory memory. If it is not then immediately used it is lost. If it is regarded as important, it is transferred for short-term storage to the short term memory. With regular reinforcement and linking to other ideas, information is eventually stored in the long term memory.

3. Social Constructivism- Social constructivism differs from Behaviourism and Cognitivism in that learning is founded from social interactions within a learning community or expert community. Important in the learning process is the support from the teacher by modelling and scaffolding. These include explicit modelling by the teacher, a shared understanding of what is to be learned by teacher and learner. Scaffolding through wiki's, blogs, forums, web-conferencing and other online communication technologies is seen as a sound strategy.

4. Connectivism- Is identified as the network learning via computers with the internet and other online resources for today's digital age.

There is no specific learning theory to use as a teacher, it is what you find right for yourself and your students to learn.

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References

https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/page/view.php?id=15608

www.text2mindmap.com